Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Netflix’s The Pentaverate
No, you don’t need to watch it. And you don’t need to care.
But if you have the slightest interest in watching Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Myers, and whoever played Chris Traeger, in Parks and Recreation in a series about a secret society that’s nice, then maybe at least give it a thought. And if you have low tolerance for lewd jokes and cussing, then–good grief, stay away!
I almost wish I hadn’t watched it. But I’m sort of glad I did. It was kind of funny. The very idea of a superpowerful secret society that’s nice is amusing, and an aging Austin Powers as a nice Canadian newsman is funny. The story was pretty good.
The wokeness was kind of annoying.
It’s time for spoilers.
It turns out that one of the problems with the Pentaverate is that it’s too white and too male. At the end, the Pentaverate nobly self-destructs and is replaced by a Septaverate that’s somehow better and nicer because now it’s got different skin colors and genitalia. But not a peep about better ideals. No mention of better processes for making decisions and running the world.
And, of course, global warming–oh, excuse me, climate change–is real and serious and an urgent crisis. Conspiracy theorists are a caricature of North American right-wingers. Or maybe vice versa, but it’s hard to tell. Wondering about Hillary’s emails is a trope for nutjobbery.
There is more than a hint of irony in the fact that the wokesters who made this show, in mocking what they imagine is a right-wing conspiracy theory, tell a story so influenced by the fevered conspiracy-mongering of the left: White males are running the world, and that’s what’s wrong with it!
Still, it could have been worse. White males aren’t inherently evil, nor non-whites inherently good. Individual decisions matter. Character matters. Individual initiative also matters. When the villain–an exaggeration of Rupert Murdoch, if I’m not mistaken–meets a conspiracy theorist, he gives him a nice speech about how the conspiracy theorists are the easiest people to control because they’re always blaming others for their problems and not fixing their own lives.
There’s probably something to that.
Better still is the message that the kindness of one decent Canadian can help fix the world. It’s not exactly Leviticus 19:18 or the Sermon on the Mount. It’s not even Seneca. But it is true, and it is edifying, and it reminds us of Galadriel in Fellowship of the Ring (movie, not book): “Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.” The lesson we’re meant to take from this is that a lot of things are fixed by ordinary people doing ordinary kind things, like Gandalf said in the first Hobbit movie. We don’t even have to be Hobbits–or Canadians–to make the world better.
And then there’s the inspiring climactic declaration from our friendly Canadian hero. I believe his words were:
The people should trust the experts! But the experts should serve the people!
Not bad. You are not far from the wisdom of Confucius, Michael Myers.
I daresay these folks think they’re critiquing those of us who dared to doubt the reigning narratives on global warming, Pfizer vaccinations, chloroquine, or macro-evolution. (You dang science deniers–you know who you are!)
But they also managed to critique Fauci while they were at it, and all our other Lords of Lockdown. I doubt they meant to, but I’ll take what I can get from Hollywood these days. I’ll take it, and then–well, I don’t know what all I’ll do. I have to catch up on some of The Flash, but I should probably get back to the original Star Trek soon. The Pentaverate could have been a lot worse, but original Star Trek is still a lot better, eh? Live long and prosper, hosers.
Published in Entertainment
Liked this post just for your writing, eh.
Not gonna do LEFTNIX while it is an Obama joint, but this sounds like a promising sign.
Thank you!
One thing I didn’t mention is that they do orgies at the Meadows–an exaggerated Davos Forum.
Is this meant to mock people who think our global elites are a bunch of jerks and pedophiles by making a joke out of it–“Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if that were true? What if they had orgies at the Davos Forum? Let’s put that in our conspiracy theory parody; it’ll be hilarious!”
Only, in The Pentaverate, it’s the good guys who have orgies at the exaggerated Davos Forum–the rich and powerful are sexually libertine, but that’s cool in the world of The Pentaverate.
Well, gee, thanks, eh.
Done and done.
So … Canadians are hobbits?
Lobelia Bearlake.
We can test this you know. Are they taking any Canadians to Isengard?
Does it have The Colonel, with his weee bitty eyes?
Should I just rewatch So I Married and Axe Murderer?
Does it have The Colonel, with his weee beedy eyes?
Should I just rewatch So I Married and Axe Murderer?
Here’s the origin of the Pentaverate scene.
Watched the first episode with the wife, and then she said that I could watch the rest when she’s not around.
Was it the second or third Austin Powers movie where he started confusing being relentlessly gross with being funny?
Cameo flashback. Yes.
Well, that explains a few things.
Yeah, makes me glad I don’t watch TV.
My husband made it 5 minutes in before I exited the room.
Earlier. My tolerance was broached in the first movie.
Gross and stupid sells. That’s what I can’t stand. Pierre Richard and Peter Sellers couldn’t get parts today.
That’s what I thought of with Mike Meyers and Pentaverate.
My phone blew up with all my kids texting when the ads first appeared. The Pentaverate holds mystical status in our family.
Ditto The Meadows. For that matter, also The Colonel. Before he went teets up.
So I Married An Ax Murderer is considered a documentary in this house.
Even when Mike Myers isn’t being funny I find him charming and likable.
But Mike Meyers gives a good climactic speech there too. Freedom without responsibility was a bad idea, even though the uptight squares who were trying to take over the world did need a little rebelling against.
“Now we’ve got freedom and responsibility. It’s a very groovy time.”
Contemporary Confucian philosopher Tu Weiming wrote a nice article about those ideas (without referencing the movie, of course). I like it.
Of course it’s male. It’s right there in the name, from the Latin word for male, vir. My daughter learned about the triumvirate of Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus last week.
You may be onto something there.
And someone may be a bit off with the spelling.
He definitely comes off as a nice guy in interviews, doesn’t he?
It’s not the orgies that bother me.